Archive for the ‘cycling’ Category

Pretty lame race overall. Highlights include riding on narrow lanes, being passed by semi-trunks in a pack of 100 squirrelly riders, being overtaken by cars while an oncoming car was coming, and a huge crash during the sprint.

Race was flat with one 2 min hill on it. Apparently there was a King of the Mountain prize. Unfortunately this hill wasn’t steep enough to break up the pack so it was 5 laps of chilling and getting passed by cars followed by a huge crash. The cat 4 35+ group that started 5 min after us did 4 laps and also had a huge crash in the very same spot just 20 min before we showed up.

I had a pretty spectactular crash. The guy in front of me went down and I hit the brakes, but it was too late. His bike was laid out in front of me and I hit it with my front wheel and went right over the bars. I got some big air! My many years of wrestling kicked in and I did a sweet front roll with the bike attached to my feet. Since the bike was bacially sheilded by me, it was fine and I only had minor road rash on my back.

After the last race I did on this course, I decided that sitting in was best. It is tough for breaks to get away because something slows you down after both of the climbs.

I did as little work as possible until the very end. My legs didn’t feel great, but I was shooting for a top 5 finish. On the last lap, I knew that on the last 2 hills I needed to get to the front before the fast part and the bunch sprint. They moved the finish to just after the really fast part on the course, so I knew that it was the front or nothing.

My legs didn’t feel great, but I went to the front on the last hill and followed the guys hammering down. After the sweeping turn we hit 45+mph and set up for the sprint. I was in 6th or so heading into the final stretch. I set up and launched my sprint at a good time. Looking back maybe I should have waited 5 seconds longer.

I came out into the wind and gunned it. I was looking down and drifted to the side of the road cause I wasn’t paying attention and almost ended up in the bushes. I think I lost a position or two because the brush on the side of the road was hitting my legs and I had to stop peddling to stay on the road.

I’m happy with 4th cause I wanted to get top 5 and this was my first legit bunch sprint.

I flatted 8 miles into the race. Given that the first 3 miles were a promenade, this was like 10 min into the actual race. The follow car was not interested in fixing flats but seemed to be there for emergencies. There were 35 DNP in my category, so that mechanic would have been very busy.

The car passed me and I knew my race was over. I am not an expert at tire changes and the first thing I did was snap one of my tire levers. I calmed down and got the new tube installed and was back on the bike. Maybe they would slow down. I time trialed in earnest for like 20 minutes and passed many others with flats. I was hoping they would be quick changes and join the chase or at least give me a time split. I think one guy said I was 3 minutes back. I picked up a fast rider in the middle of the 2nd lap and we team time trialed until the end of lap 3. We decided to sprint to the line so it seemed like we were racing. I took 2nd.

All in all it was a crappy day for me, but I just picked up some new tires so I’m hoping things will go better next time.

Place 7th Category: 5 Race: Monterey CCCX Teammates: None Field Size: 35 Conditions: Drizzling before the race, but nice during

Lots of strong people out today and many I’ve never met before. The hills were way more punishing than they looked on the topo map, but they were still rollers at the end of the day and the pack didn’t really break up on them. We did spit people out the back for the first 3 laps until there was like 15-20 left to stick it out.

I just sat in most of the time and kept out the wind. I don’t think people understood there was a crosswind on each of the climbs because I seemed to be the only one stacked up on a diagonal. I figured that I’d have that advantage at least at the end.

I made 3 mistakes in this race that took me off the podium. The first was a big attack I dropped at the end of the 2nd to last lap. Did a bunch of work with no result. The next is that I let an attack go halfway through the last lap and didn’t go with when I had the option. The last was to do a bunch of chasing of the 2 guys off the front near the end of the last lap. I figured some of the other teams would do some chasing, but they were happy to set up for 3rd. Lame!

Awesome race today. We brought the whole team out. Unfortunately, the whole team is 3 riders each in different categories so no team work for me. Came away with 2nd place.

Pace was so slow after the first descent of the race. I attacked just to mix it up. Everyone else was also looking for a reason to go hard, so the chase was immediate. Will attacked next. I had made friends with Will when we were in a chase group at Patterson. He had one guy go with and I slow rolled at the front hoping to bridge later and they got a little gap, but were still caught quickly.

Will and I waited for a few more attacks and then attacked again together, but that was also shut down. We came back to the first climb and the pace was a little fast but I don’t think anyone was getting dropped. On the way back out Will had attacked with another guy and they were off the front for a little while. I put in a big effort and bridged to the group and we started working.

The other guy with Will cracked pretty quickly and it was just the 2 of us, which I was good with because I knew Will and I could work together and if the cat 5 pack couldn’t get a chase organized, we’d be good. Unfortunately, Will spent a lot of time off the front earlier and said he was going to drop back to the pack. Also, the pack had finally organized a chase so we sat up.

When we got caught, the pack decided to leave us in the front going like 18mph. I was just doing like 140W and chilling, but no one would pass me. Totally bizarre. Eventually I got into like 12th spot and waited and recovered for the next 15 miles to the hilltop finish.

Finish was pretty good for me. As soon as the road started going out, the front group sorted itself out and everyone else went backwards. Everyone went hard on the first half of the climb and I made sure I had a wheel as the pace was around 20mph. Then the road dips down and gets fast and then the last 1km is all uphill with a nice 1km marker to give you a heads up. Had a good lead out wheel from someone going too hard that I wanted to hold till the 200m mark, but one guy was off the front by like 30m. So at 400m I chased after him at VO2max, then sprinted the last 200m, but didn’t catch him.

Apparently all the top 6 placers in each category get t-shirts except for cat 5. No love for the cat 5 racers. One more race to go before moving to cat 4.

Sat in the whole race and did pretty much zero work the whole time. On the third to last lap one guy behind me got squeezed out on the outside and went over the curb and crashed pretty bad. We came around the last lap and the sprint before the sprint was pretty chill and I made it into the 10 man group without much trouble. After people went hard too early I waited and was about to sprint, but one of the guys who blew up almost took out my front wheel and I wasn’t able to take off and get into the top 5 like I expected. At least I saved my skin.

After the race I talked with Annie and apparently Dan hadn’t shown up in the last 2 laps. I’m a pretty terrible teammate because I didn’t know he was missing. They were worried he got caught up in the crash so I went for another lap looking for him. Apparently he had flatted and was chilling at the start/finish line. whew!

This was a great race and win for team Palantir. Dan did a great amount of work in the pack blocking for me and convincing the pack not to chase.

The race started at a slow pace except for one dude that just hammered it and opened up a nice lead on the pack. The guy behind me wasn’t staying very close so after turn one it seemed like a good time to bridge up. It took some effort to get on his wheel for sure, but I took a rest and we got to work.

We kept looking back around the corners for the first few laps and eventually we didn’t see the pack. We were consistently putting up about 3:20 per lap and I knew that the pack could do 3:05 if it was hammering. When the 5 laps left went up I was hoping that that we had over a minute so we could hold them off when they decided to chase.

Dan had been doing such an awesome job of blocking that we were kept gaining time on the splits. The picture below shows how great Dan is distrupting the pack from chasing.

On the final lap before turn 3, Christian was nice enough to give me the win. I’ve been practicing my victory salute.

Race started off pretty slowly and a guy went off the front and hung out there for a while. One guy bridged up and I also bridged up and we got to work. The guy who started the attack was really strong and we were working well. Before the main climb on the course we had 2 minutes on the pack and they weren’t chasing.

As the climb began the other 2 guys I was with pulled away and I just kept it at threshold. Two super strong climbers had jumped way off the pack and and caught us at the top of the hill. 3 guys formed up as the lead group and I formed a chase group with 1 other guy. We chased for the next 15 miles and kept seeing them ahead of us as we got around turns, but were never closer than a minute. I was pretty happy that the 2-man group I was in was able to not get caught and almost catch the lead group of 3. The rider I was with cramped up at the 1km mark when the last little climb kicked up and I finished in 4th place.